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The Chicago Symphony's Brass Is World-Famous. Hear It Blast.
What distinguishes one top-rank orchestra from another? For the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, it’s long been the brass.
She's Putting Her Mark on the Kennedy Center
WASHINGTON — The Kennedy Center’s first expansion in its nearly half-century history had just opened, and its new spaces were being put through their paces for the first time.
The Met's Herculean Task: 4 Operas in 48 Hours
NEW YORK — It was Friday afternoon, five hours before curtain, and a stylized Japan was taking shape on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera. A crew was untangling ropes of cherry blossoms to form the backdrop of Madama Butterfly’s house in Nagasaki.
A Musical Revolt Succeeds: WNYC, in a Reversal, Keeps 'New Sounds'
NEW YORK — There has been a reprieve: After an outcry from artists, composers, listeners and staffers, WNYC-FM announced Monday that it had reversed its plans to cancel “New Sounds,” the influential, eclectic new-music program that has expanded the city’s tastes for 37 years.
Priced Out of Classical Music? Try Concerts for $8.33
NEW YORK — It is no secret that classical music faces strong headwinds, but one challenge has been reaching gale-force proportions in recent years: high ticket prices.
Opera Superstar Leaves the Met Under a Sexual Harassment Cloud
NEW YORK — In an eleventh-hour reversal, superstar singer Plácido Domingo withdrew Tuesday from the Metropolitan Opera’s production of Verdi’s “Macbeth” and indicated he would not return to the Met amid rising tensions over the company’s response to allegations that he had sexually harassed multiple women.
The Complex History and Uneasy Present of 'Porgy and Bess'
It was one of those mythic New York nights: the Broadway premiere of the Gershwins’ “Porgy and Bess” in 1935.
The Baltimore Symphony Brings Back Its Musicians
The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, which locked out its musicians over the summer while seeking substantial budget reductions, ratified a one-year agreement Monday that will cut the number of official weeks of work for the musicians this year, but will make up the difference with bonus pay.
Savior or Charlatan? A Punk Maestro Jolts Classical Music
(Fall Preview)
The Berlin Philharmonic's Anti-Anti-Maestro
BERLIN — There are standard-issue maestro activities that Kirill Petrenko — who has just ascended to one of classical music’s most storied posts: chief conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic — simply does not do.
It Was 'Cool Central': Bill T. Jones Leads a Trip Through His Archive
NEW YORK — “There are a lot of emotions in these stories,” choreographer, dancer and director Bill T. Jones said one evening this summer as he rummaged through some of the hundreds of folders and document boxes that make up the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company Archive, which had just been acquired by the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.
Accusations Against Plácido Domingo Divide the Opera World
For half a century, Plácido Domingo has been one of opera’s most beloved figures: a heartthrob tenor, a leader of opera companies and an ambassador for the art form who, at 78, continues to be a box-office draw in an era of diminished star power.
After Decades of Music, Tanglewood Talks
LENOX, Mass. — For more than 80 years, Tanglewood, the bucolic summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, has made the Berkshires a vital destination for classical music.
Lang Lang Is Back: A Piano Superstar Grows Up
NEW YORK — It was late one afternoon this spring, and Madison Square Garden’s 19,000 seats were empty as Billy Joel and Lang Lang began jamming onstage.
Chicago Symphony Musicians Vote to End Orchestra's Longest Strike
The longest strike in the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s 128-year history neared an end on Saturday, when its musicians voted to approve a new labor agreement that was brokered with the help of Chicago’s mayor, Rahm Emanuel. The mayor had called the players’ union and the orchestra’s management to his office on Friday to try to break the nearly seven-week stalemate.City Ballet Ordered to Reinstate Male Dancers Fired Over Inappropriate Texts
NEW YORK — In an early test case of the limits of disciplinary action in the #MeToo era, an arbitrator has ruled that New York City Ballet overstepped when it fired two principal male dancers accused of sharing sexually explicit photos of female dancers, the company said Friday.
For 15 Hours, He's in Charge of Wagner's 'Ring'
NEW YORK — Backstage at the Metropolitan Opera, a rehearsal pianist was ready to launch into Wagner’s famous “Ride of the Valkyries.” But before the battalion of singers could unleash their war cries — “Hojotoho!” — the conductor, Philippe Jordan, paused to offer a brief elocution lesson.
She Runs Marathons and Sings Opera. And She Just Won $50,000.
The bright-voiced American soprano Lisette Oropesa — who is known for singing bel canto onstage and running marathons offstage — has been awarded the prestigious Richard Tucker Award, the prize’s administrators announced Monday.Joseph Flummerfelt, a Choral Catalyst, Dies at 82
Joseph Flummerfelt, the pre-eminent American choral conductor of his generation and a collaborator with some of the nation’s most renowned orchestras and maestros, died Friday in Indianapolis. He was 82.City Ballet, Shaken by Turmoil, Chooses New Leaders
NEW YORK — New York City Ballet, which has been going through one of the most tumultuous periods in its history, announced Thursday that it had picked new artistic leaders for the first time in more than three decades, turning to a pair of respected former dancers to help right the ship.
